Charlotte messenger. [volume] (Charlotte, Mecklenburg Co., N.C.) 1882-18??, 1887-10-29
SCIENTIFIC AND INDUSTRIAL.

Applying certain measurements to
scarcely visible film Of silver, Herr
Wiener arrives at the conclusion that no
less than 1876, 900, 900 molecules of silver
must be laid in line to measure an inch.
In collection of poisonous fishes now
on exhibition at Havre is very pecu-
liar, Tetrodon from the Japan Sea, which
is sometimes used a means of suicide. II
gives sensations like those of morphiss
then death.
Though discovered in 1870, saccha.
rinc is just beginning to be manufac-
tured on large scale, near Magdeburg,
Prussia. Having 300 times the sweet
ening power of cane sugar, this remarka-
BILE product is adapted to many uses. 1t
is expected to be especially valuable in
medicine on account of its absolute
harmlessness.
In addition to supplying crops with
necessary moisture, rain has a distinct
manurial value. At Rothamstead, the
well-known farm Of Sir John B. Lawer,
it has been shown that, with an annual
rainfall of little less than 80 inches,
each acre of land receives every year in
the rain water over IA pounds of pure
chlorine, and between two and three
pounds of ammonia.
An English inventor proposes to i'm
prove, by condensation and hardening
the Uarre1s OF small arms, uuDeS anu inc
like in their finished state; this to be ac-
complished by subjecting them to pres
sure of 500 or more tons while they arc
immersed in water in a strong vessel, the
operation being performed by hydraulic
pressure caused by heavy hammer fall
ing on a piston which closes said vessel.
Artificial refrigeration is proving of
great economic value Besides its appli-
cation to the manufacture of ice in warm
countries, the principle is well adapted
to the cooling Of air, and rooms are fit
ted up with coils of pipe by which any
desired temperature can be continuously
kept up, either just above the freezing
point or many degrees below it. Ocean
steamers are now supplied with this ap-
paratus, and the temperature of the hold
is Kept so low that fresh meat and pro-
visions can be transported for the longest
voyages without injury.
The equilibrium of the air is frequently
such that the under surface of the clouds
is like ceiling. It is fair weather
sign, whether upon the sea or upon the
land. One may frequently see it in a
mountainous district, when the fog
clouds settle down, and blot out all the
tops of the mountains without one fleck
of vapor going below given line which
runs above every valley as uniform as the
sc III hot in, fofr
weather the atmosphere always lies in
regular strata in this way, and that it is
the displacement and mixing up of these
by some unknown cause that produces
storms.
The economy of superseding horses by
electricity on street railways is still some
thing of an open question, but it is not
likely to remain SO long. Much that has
been claimed in this direction, says an
eminent electrical authority, has hardly
been based on practical fact. Professor
Reckenzaun says that in the present
condition of the storage battery system
not more than forty per cent. of the
power collected from the steam engine
and applied to the dynamo can be recov-
cred in work. But this, he says, makes
the storage system cheaper than horse
traction. Professor Reckenzaun, like
many others, is believer IN the future
of the so-called storage battery. 1t is
yet in the state of experimentation, and
there are those who believe that the
present compares with that of the future
scarcely more favorably than did Watts
kettle with the steam-engine of fifty
years later.